Fast Day 212 June 25 2011 {Looking To The Mainland} second draft

Looking To The Mainland

On our island, no one fixes things no more:
Joe Blackbird and his sons used to come
to do some work, but Homeland
Security keeps them out;
they don't come to Sans Souci much now.
The Border Patrol comes now and then
looking for the Chinese they say,
smuggled from Canada.

once a Coast Guard chopper
its searchlight on a hollow, empty
rowboat, Evinrude lashed to the side,
round and round in circles
a thousand guys from China
come ashore a couple miles down
while everybody watched a boat...
going round in vicious circles...

We had a party line;
our ring was two shorts and a long.
nothing works much here anymore...
... like living in Baghdad
Sometimes you talk to a neighbor...
Phone rings now, someone wants your money.
In Grandma's day there was a train
and we would wave to the engineer.

rails are all gone
only thing left is
the road named Short Cut.
Deer herds eat our flowers, and people
have given up planting them.
There are enormous herds of deer
that are taking over after our human history...
praying round and round in circles
the mantra of the empty boat.

--
pix: http://www.jillwagnerart.com/artblog/fishermans-island-view/


notes:


Sans Souci  - a very, very small Michigan town. The name is French and means "without a  care".

Fast Day 211 June 12 2011 {Sweat on Velvet}

 Sweat on Velvet

The shameless excitement of sweaty skin
fracturing fluids upon a velvet couch!
Moaning like the breath that is blown
across a wide-mouthed jug!
Besom of hair wiping
fast as flames lick!

Her hairy vampire lovers like the dark;
I am mid-day sun and dry myself upon
hot backyard clotheslines where I pin
her love's humid mitten!
We show up on Doppler!
like...  it's pouring!


--
for the week June 12 through June 19

fracturing - hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, etc.
--

This Week

I am going to be pre-occupied, so I did the poem quick-like, and will post it early early.

--

Fast Day 210 June 11 2011 {Islands in the Sea}

Islands in the Sea

Incubus of night, nightmare worry,
favored by the moon tonight
I stride the deck
far away from home
adrift in uncertainty.

Succubus of day, demon of the noon,
tumble aft! tumble everyone!
mind your helm –
top’s’l halliards let fly!
We drive before the gale!

The treacherous archipelago
once fertile isles, haunted by ghosts
of animals extinct;
asphalt palm trees –
and mad men on the hills!

--
I  could have said "... mad men on the Hill."
--

Welcome Matt

I mean, welcome to "Matt at Shadow of Iris"... that's what I mean.

Since no one comments anymore, I shall do my own comments. I find my most recent effort too contrived. The poet strains at being inventive. But there is a great deal I like, particularly the quatrains titled by the seasons of the year. Perhaps I have found my voice... or a voice, at least.

Comments are appreciated, particularly critical comments. Criticism well intended makes us stronger.

--

Fast Day 209 June 5 2011 {No One Lives Here Anymore}

No One Lives Here Anymore


Autumn
There is probably good walking in the woods;
ground a little frozen now,
and you will not sink away…
we could go there now, if you wish

New Year’s Day is in the autumn months, I think September;
school orchards are applefull of sapling-kids,
sporting uniforms
of bright leaves and mystic stick hair:
trees untouched by axe or ootamuhikun –
or tomahawk; trees unburnt, unscathed:
trees untired of standing, trees not weary
of the diadem of fruit
upon their pollard heads.

Winter
The pigment of snow has white-washed all the land;
make sure the snowshoe
line that goes across the toes
is firmly drawn and taut, if you please.

Ozzie and Harriet kitchen, a dated memory
of cabinets and counter-tops; June Cleaver
in the woodwork and
Ward Cleaver in the telephone:
“Hi, Doc! Can you come over? The boys
got into some trouble: David skinned his
knee, and Ricky got into drugs and died
in an aeroplane meth lab,
and Beaver went to ‘Nam… “

Spring
When the weather warms, my daughter’s often sick
the cold has passed away,
the solstice comes, I suppose…
and great bird cloud-trains fill the air.

I have some stockings and some leggings, and I take them off:
I no longer run in the morning cold;
breeze to my back, my
sweat poured until I turned to face
full western brute blasting wind, and I was
encased in carbonite like Han Solo,
zero to the bones, my crotch frozen
like a marble Gothic architrave
hung over a nave of sleet -
spring-melting into igloo dust.

Summer
There are frogs within the newly dug basements
of houses abuilding…
dusk smell of concrete and pond…
houses never to be sold!

--

“ootamuhikun” = tomahawk (Cree Indian).
“applefull” = as full or crowded as an apple tree in the autumn

“mystic stick” = mistik or mistikoos (Cree Indian): a small stick, referring here to new branches on saplings, and comparing them to a child’s hair.
“cloud-trains” = long lines of birds flying through the clouds. The original meaning of “train” was large linear group of objects.

Poetus Interruptus

I shall probably be late posting this week's poem, although not late getting it together. I am at may parents, helping my father get back on his feet after pneumonia and working to get their summer place ready. Neither place provides any Internet connection. I used a Sprint card before, but recently it tends to get picked up by the Canadian system, and incurs roaming charges, making it expensive.

--

Fast Day 208 May 28 2011 4 YEARS {Detroit}

Detroit

We are stardust in the fearful void,
we are Tuareg in the waterless empire.
This land is our father whose hair is jet;
it is our mother who is beautiful:
Antimony eyes, pomegranate lips...
County guys bring bitumen to fill
the potholes of our Red Bull washboard
life of peaks and valleys, highs and lows!
mom and dad sing to us until we shine!

The last drive-in picture show in Detroit,
filled with the gaudy films  of memory:
when we were homicide perp-walk city!
Space heaters and cracked plaster...
Henry Ford and Malcolm X...
Going to Quebec to bury Aunt Stell,
a boy says  "Hear yer from Hockey Town, eh?"
No comic epitaphs, no eulogy;
We are the Bedouin of this New Age.

The Old Kingdom gives way to the New;
and the Motown Spring - neither ornament
nor imitation - was the harmony
of the spheres that drove our autos a while...
bring us our Prom Tux limos of desire!
bring us industry Elijah hearses of fire!
On the river there's the Don't-Look-Back Shack
most people call the Renaissance Center,
but history is coke and cognac...
that's suicide by a two-liter!

--
notes

Detroit
look to the future, not the past.

perp-walk :  the walk from the DA's office to the jail

coke and cognac: suicide drink; I knew a fellow Marcus who loved it. He was in love with a beautiful girl who lived in Ontario. When she split, he killed himself. He could not live in the future without his past continuing on.

Bedouins: to the eye of moderns, a poor people, but the basis of the future when the cities have died.

I did not plan on having two Detroit poems, one after another, but that's life in the big city.
--

Friends

Blogger seems to have supressed the "Friends" icons that used to be on the right. I can not see it. My Design area says that it exists. So, I was going to write a welcome, but I can't see who is there at all. Sorry.

--

Fast Day 207 May 21 2011 {Detroit Woodward Morning}

Part of Diego Rivera's murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts

Detroit Woodward Morning

In Detroit the parking meters never tell:
three quarters gets you twenty minutes.

The first pile of stones we set
was for our fathers dear,
that we may not forget the creation
from carbon and from iron.

Kirby and Farnsworth are seasonal
dry-up river bed streets;

The second heap of stones we set
was in memory of our mothers,
that we may not forget the harvest
from the incised earth.

Then we set marble for our brother and our sisters:
cool mausoleum buildings where we laid our books
and the icons of a Yankee Industry
and murals of Mexic Rivera!










Woodward is the Father of all thoroughfares:
a mighty Mississippi!
old cars sweep like snags of rotten trees,
and we bob our heads and bolt across the stream:
big-bottomed barges laugh at us,
while we dodge a wave of feral sloops...
nothing but day-trip kids!
Everywhere you look there are lascivious
cornrows, reaching down like willow trees
upon the shore,
grasping for muddy waters down below:
tight rows spaced like pregnant furrows
worked with time, patience, and agile fingers!
bursting with the Earth’s delights!

I am a thief, you know,
and I midnight swim that river
and come to you to steal the silken scarf
that you sleep upon…
and taste the fruit of those rows of corn.



--
notes

tell - "tell" is used in the sense of "counting:, the idea being the meters do not seem to tally the coins one drops into them.

This is a visit to the area of the Detroit Institute of Arts, on Woodward between Kirby and Farnsworth, across from the Detroit Public Library, which is next to Wayne State University. I was waiting and walking around.

There is a voyage through space and time: we are explorers of old - perhaps the first Native Americans to wander into the Great Lakes.
We set markers or cairns of stones to denote important areas of power. Then - as time passes - we build the marble structures from the monies of our industry. Carbon and Iron could refer to the Auto Industry, or it could refer to the heavier elements created by stars long ago.
The thoroughfares continue, through good times and bad, and there is beauty.
There is laughter...  and kids run around... and we are all here: Black, White, Hispanic; we are waiting for that bright idea of the future. It is not a Renaissance, a concept which has been repeated until it is meaningless. The Future will be totally new, and we shall be in on the ground floor.

--

Welcome May 10 2011

Welcome, Emmie Overtown.
The name Overtown brings Underhill to mind, but that would lead us far astray in The Lord of the Rings theory and nomenclature... I think Frodo in The Fellowship went by the pseudonym Mr. Underhill.

It does not matter. What matters is the Fast. Everybody remembers the poems, but then they forget the second pillar of this blog: the fast one day per week. It's all rather simple once you get used to it, although there is a cumbrous lot of canonical laws relating to which days to fast and whether the sick or pregnant (!?) may be excused. There even is a section on forced feeding of poetry to recalcitrant children... all very medieval.... reminds me of those German Easter decorations where jazzy rabbits in zoot suits are pulling fast ones on little chicks, making them cry!! Nothing quite like German Easter decorations. Scary. We saved one for years where Jasper the Urban Rabbit is abusing a brace of cute baby chicks who are pulling a wagon with all their might, teamed to the wagon with harsh looking bits in their tiny beaks!  Really appalling stuff for tykes. However, when I was a mere child, we used to have one of those Germanic comix where the Scissors Man went around cutting off the thumbs of children who sucked their thumbs: two strikes and you're out!

Enough of that. Brrr! Depart, Memory!!
--

Fast Day 206 May 14 2011 {Invisible Palaces}

Invisible Palaces
Mothers' Day 2011

The old porch where she combed my daughter’s
golden hair, where we sat on second hand
rattan from my mother’s great-grand-porch
where I mosquito slapped and watched TV
on poplar summer evenings so peppered
with life that they could never, never be!

Combing golden hair, she transforms
the kiln-fired brick, dusty mortar, and the tile
into a glazed mosaic of elegant scheme;
she paints Sheherazad’s aviaries
matted within a garden of vermilion
parrots and bright and hand-dyed toucans!

We sit in our bergamot-scented Alhambra,
serene as the Caliph’s diligent Wazeers,
in the Middle Ages of parenthood -
an endless arcade where metal windows
turn to rich Arab wood, and esparto
shades undulate to distant seashore wind.

--
notes
Posted early because I can't wait any longer. Maybe I'll start doing two poems a week. Look out!

Alhambra - the palace in Spain
Wazeer - the main minister of an Islamic ruler

This tries to express how love and parenthood transform humble surroundings into magnificence.
--

Fast Day 205 May 5, 2011 {Graduation From Medical School}

Graduation from Medical School

What blush brings the night that sits upon your cheek?
What henna of sympathetic care stains your hands?
Which precious fine damask imprints the sun
to use for your graduation robes
in that princely gathering of laureates?

What color brings the day for your crowning gele?
Who is the Master Dyer who adorns your hands
with patterns magisterial to heal
all of mankind’s maladies and ills,
in your university of devotion.

----
notes
More Colours! Many, many colours!
And lots of notes!

(1) Graduation from Michigan State School of Osteopathic Medicine.

(2) gele - the flamboyant and colorful Nigerian ladies head garb.

(3) The Master Dyer is Allah, or God.
This poem came about when I came across different translations of the word صبغة
or “sibgha” in Chapter 2, Verse 138 of the Quran. I was very surprised at the various interpretations of the word:

We see the old Muslim commentators seeing a reference to Christianity, a reference to the Christian ritual of baptism, a connection which I had never heard of before. I suspect many have not. Indeed, St. John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, has a title  الصابغ
"saabigh", meaning “The Baptist”, but it also means “(one) who is dyeing things, a dyer”.

'Abid A worshipper [of God]. A term generally used for a devout person. The word frequently occurs in the Qur'an: e.g., Surah ii, 132 {sic} "The baptism (sibghah) of God! And who is better than God at baptizing? We are worshippers ('abidun) of God!"
The word sibghah is translated by Professor Palmer  "dye"and "dyeing", but Sale, following the Muslim commentators, Al-Baizawi, Jalalu 'd-din, and Husaini, who say it refers to the Christian rite, translates it "baptism".
Others say that it means fitrah or din, the religion of God, with an adaptation to which mankind are created. See Lane's Lexicon  [BAPTISM].

 Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam.


Modern translators handle it:

Yusuf Ali:
(Our religion is) the Baptism of God: And who can baptize better than God? And it is He Whom we worship.
Zohurul Hoque:
"The dye of Allah, and who is better than Allah in dye? And we are worshippers of Him."
T. J. Irving:
[Such is] God's design! Who is better than God for a design? We are serving Him.
T.U. Hilali-M. Khan:
[Our Sibghah (religion) is] the Sibghah (Religion) of Allâh (Islâm) and which Sibghah (religion) can be better than Allâh's? And we are His worshippers. [Tafsir Ibn Kathîr.]
M. Pickthall:
(We take our) colour from Allah, and who is better than Allah at colouring. We are His worshippers.
M.H. Shakir:
(Receive) the baptism of Allah, and who is better than Allah in baptising? and Him do we serve.
http://www.qurantoday.com/BaqSec16.htm

So we have connections across cultures that were – to me at least – unexpected and very interesting, and we have an ancient connection between colors and religion and faith.
That is where this graduation poem comes from.

The structure resembles the previous poem, but I could not get it out of my system, and I did not have much time to come up with this.
--

Welcome May 5 2011

I have totally lost track of everything. I lost one friend, and then I gained two or three others. At first I thought Thea von Harbou had become a friend and follower, but that was just dreaming about Fritz Lang films, Metropolis in particular.
There are Evgenia, Aikidoka-Samurai, and Karla Torres to welcome, and CoolGuys to say good-bye to. As mentioned earlier, I had a comment from a fine, local septic tank service that gave me pause, thinking it to be a comment, but it was a commercial link, too. I had to deep-six it.


If I have this all mixed up, I am mixed up. We are used to things happening at a much slower pace here. It has been almost 4 entire years, and things only happen towards the deadline, when I force myself to pay attention to meter and meaning (if possible!) and sometimes rhyme and get those poems out. Hold the presses! Get my gal Friday in here with her steno pad. Run the stock footage of printing presses. Extra!
Then back to hibernation for another week.
Actually, this week I am ahead of the curve, and the poem is done. Ha! It's only Thursday, but it is graduation season and I have a slue of people asking for high-falutin' words, oratory, and general speechifying... mostly from relatives who have no intention of paying.

Welcome, friends!

Sorry...

I deleted a couple of comments for my last post, since they were both linked to commercial sites. I wish them well, but I won't piggyback their advertising, specially since they offer me nothing.

The second one was from a septic tank service, and I thought it might indeed be a valid criticism and comment as well as a link to a business, and perhaps I should let it remain. I did not.

Fast Day 204 April 30 2011 {Heroin}

A Squall Line in the Florida Keys

Heroin

What color am I now? Umber and sienna...
What color are we now? Umber and sienna...
like the sweet hashhish resin,
we shall soon be silver fog
and dreamlike boats
upon that Sea...
where all the waves are bass beat...
where all the waves are bomb.

What color are my eyes? Eglantine and rose...
What color are we now? Madder and sweet brier...
catch the eyelid of a storm
that winks upon the squall line -
like diamonds hang
below her face...
where the waves are lines and rows...
where the rain is needles.

What color is the sun? Vermilion and cinnabar...
What color are we all? Cochineal and rubia...
the crumpling of gracile tin foil
brings us back to where we want to be:
we divine, godlike
coloured crayons;
where waves are gangsters on parole...
where wind is hollow tip.

--
notes


the rituals of heroin, particularly the tin foil and the symbolic meaning it may have. even the most ordinary sequence of events may, with repetition and reward, create a profound ritual that points beyond the everyday...
it reminds us of Good and Evil around us everyday... 

I wrote this remembering a converse I had with my brother about how the ritual he remembered was greater than the drug itself.

--

Welcome, Christophanie Julien and Coolguys

 A Bothan Poet-Soldier

Welcome, travellers, to the Peace Blog! The Only Fast-induced Visionary and Poetry site on the web that has lasted (almost) 4 years!
Many Bothans have died in bringing you these poems! The Elomim have mined, and the Drovians have transported these goods! The Echani have protected their labors! The Boltrunians sweated blood so we may sing these songs!
Even the bumbling Otolla Gungan attempted to help in the fight against Darth Sidious (... even from a young age he dreamed of ruling the Galaxy...)

Welcome, Coolguys and  Christophanie Julien! But... we shall not yet teach you to manipulate the midi-chlorians!

--

Fast Day 203 April 23 2011 {At Brandon Plantation, Virginia}

At Brandon Plantation, Virginia

Slavery is gone
but its memory lingers:
potteries ceramic fired in indentured kilns
repeat great odes of naked Greeks and gods.
The childhood of our nation gone,
lapsed in wisteria laden alleys thronged with
anemone and adonis' blood and peony...
a ceaseless wand'ring along the James,
river of our quiescent madness
and river of sacred mud and sand.

The adolescence of the country past,
but still remember the gods and goddesses
who once learnt us with rose-dawn fingers
and lavender stamens and pollen feet!
In the adulthood of our discords,
the eros of our youth inspires!
We yearn resurrection again
and drop the stonewalls of our lives!

--
notes
Easter
At Brandon Plantation along the James River, Virginia.

Life and the Hope of Resurrection defeat the evils of the past...

--

Fast Day 202 April 15 2011 {Susan Welcomes Revolution} {شوشانا ترحب الثورة}

Susan welcomes Revolution
in the month of Nisan:
she smokes without matches,
she drinks without wineskins;
when she cries,
she is not dieing...
as are we...
but she is creating the rivers of Eden!

Susan is a Visionary
in the Spring of the year:
not drinking from poisoned wells,
not eating of forbidden foods;
when she sleeps
she does not slumber,
as do we,
but remains vigilant for her tribe until dawn!

Susan is an desert shaman
in the April of time:
the scorpion of heart's desire
makes her strip off all her clothing;
when she loves,
she is not at peace,
as are we;
nightly hunts she leads with the campfire's greyhound smoke.

Susan welcomes revolution;
in month of Tammuz:
reflections in eternity,
encased in Persian mastic
as an ant
encased in amber:
but not we
who east of Paradise must live until all men be free!


--
notes

the poem is about new life and new intuition and Arab culture and the events of 2011.

--

Welcome Rai

I noticed a new icon denoting another friend has thrown caution to the winds and decided to go on record as needing a weekly dose of poetry. Welcome, Rai!

At this point, of course, we are all thinking, like, Wow! "Rai" sounds a lot like "Rra", and maybe we should say "Dumela, Rra!", or "Good day, Sir!"... or "Dumela, Mma!" or "Good day, Ma'am!" as the case may be.
I was running on the treadmill the other day and some exercise bunnies had preceded me into the exercise room, so they had the stereo blasting at a volume sufficient to expel gamma ray bursts from our galaxy at exactly 245.78 second intervals.
A song was playing. It was English first, then everything changed a bit, and it struck me maybe it was Afro-Beat music, for the language was maybe African... hard to say when you are pounding the treadmill and the bass is way up.
So when the girl who was playing the radio was leaving, she turned off the tunes. I asked whether she would please turn it back on, which she did. We chatted briefly about the music and the station. We mentioned the song I believed to be a type of Afro-Beat, and I mentioned it seemed that it was partly non-English, and she agreed.
Then I went too far.
Then I crossed the line.
Then I did the thing which makes me liable to be charged with harassment.
I said that I thought it sounded like Setswana, the language of Botswana... you know, used to be Bechuanaland or whatever...
End of that conversation.

--

Fast Day 201 April 9 2011 {Beau Ahmad}

Beau Ahmad

What do you see and what the news from here and o'er the sea?
What is said in Paris, what said in Brussels, and done in Benghazi?

Sand dunes of cars and pickup trucks
wadis of oil and money,
wadis of fire and death,
the brave rebels stand by the sea:
Ma Ahsanuhum!
How beautiful they are!
And beau Ahmad, a skilled welder!

Drivers, refiners, mechanics:
Beau Ahmad captains them
along the metalled roads,
eating macadam kilometers;
bound for Sirte, the vipers’ nest
to overwhelm the Jinn
and stubborn men:
mercenaries of Gaddafi.

what do you see and what the news from here and o'er the sea?
what is said in Paris, what said in Brussels, and done in Benghazi?

Libya’s new army drives on;
rebels like locusts,
thick as the newly raised
upon that fateful Day to come!
Chase the dogs back to Tripoli’s
kennel, where their leader
grooms himself by Sidra
licking his wounds in solitude.

The mirage of midday flattens
down the fortress
of our schemes and hopes;
Lacking fuel, we move like camels
wounded in the hoof; noon… we pray
to God, the Clement;
fire rains from the sky
over the head of Ahmad, beau.

what do you see and what the news from here and o'er the sea?
what is said in Paris, what said in Brussels, and done in Benghazi?


---notes
why “beau”?
in the future, there will be epics celebrating the heroes of today, and they will be depicted as handsome and brave, and the villains will be craven and base. I’m just speeding it up. And “beau” is French because the future will be an amalgam of the past.

Ma Ahsanuhum means “how handsome (or perfect or well-formed or nice) they are”

There are various place name in Libya; Sidra is the Gulf off Tripoli.

Jinn are what we call genies. They are constituted from smokeless flame and are just below the angels.

The fateful Day to come is the day of resurrection.

ما احلى

How Sweet It Is!

My newest favorite expression, pronounced with a strong "H":    ma  aHlaa'  !

Three syllables, accent on the first and second syllable.

Fast Day 200 April 2 2011 {When NATO First in Libya Struck}

When NATO First in Libya Struck

When NATO first in Libya struck,
I felt my soul’s exuberance -
saw the Colonel’s intransigence!
The rebels in their pickup truck
watching oil flames rise to the sky,
the world drank champagne in Dubai!

The price of gasoline will rise
and so will price of wheat and bread;
news flash mixed with video games,
while Bouazizi greets the flames,
with Fatimid speed now widely spread
before the Almoravid eyes!

Now history no longer shocks,
seen from the world’s tallest building:
a mere tempest in an X-Box!
Immune in Andalusia,
await Isabella’s wedding!
Street vendor, martyr, gloria!

Does anyone recall the day
when the Khaleef Omar would spend -
full half the world beneath his sway! –
with needle, thread, his own shirts mend?
beyond the pyre of dogma’s fires
the sun sets not, but now expires!

What shall we do upon that day
when we find out, to our dismay,
that furrows dug no longer fruit,
and weapons aimed no longer shoot?
how that extinction will we tend
if God’s blessing no longer wend?

----------

notes:

My consternation watching violence. Everything is on cable TV and seems unreal from my perspective of my youth.

The Rhyme constantly changes.

Bouazizi – Muhammad Bouazizi, the street vendor in Tunisia whose self-immolation started the Middle East uprisings.

Fatimid – a dynasty originally in Egypt and an offspring established the dynasty in Spain. The speed is the speed of a blessing or good luck, because the Fatimids in Spain endured and those in Egypt did not.

Almoravid - a old North African dynasty.

Andalusia - the final Muslim kingdom in Spain at the late 15th century.

Isabella’s wedding – to Ferdinand. She was Columbus patron. The royal couple defeated the last Muslim kingdom in Spain and also expelled the Jews from Spain.

khaleef - standing for “khaleefa”, which means “successor”. Usually spelled “caliph”. ‘Umar or Omar was a khaleefa of strict probity and displayed no ostentation nor love of money or power. He also mended his own garments.

world’s tallest building – Burj Khaleefa in Dubai. Tower of Babylon type thing. Dubai is used as an emblem of pointless and soulless wealth.

wend – “expected”; past participle of “ween”, to expect. Used by Chaucer and now considered archaic.

Fast Day 199 March 26 2011 {A Schmear on the Bagel...} כשר פיזיקה

-

-

A Schmear of Probabilty on the Bagel of My Life
Poem Against Nuclear Power Industry

My house is built with Heisenberg struts
and joiners and joists and beams,
It requires no maintenance as long
as no one looks!
thereby collapsing the wave function
into Tivoli gardens;
It is a schmear of probability
wide spread on the bagel of my life.

One cannot see the dadoes nor the cuts
only smooth transition seams,
fibers run like termites to prolong
brackets one sees!
force-fields and vector-jackets both junction
and bracket protozoans.
it's the sum of all my ungefillte
wishes, all now fargeyts, in midst of strife.

Challa baked before all time, and blintzes
with spin and strange and charms:
ingredients of house and song!
blessings we view!
quantum cats like matza ball abstraction,
rolled in egg and sold in tins;
Upon a cross of nuclear energy
crucify us now!: husband, children, wife!

Heisenberg

-----
notes
Theme: Nuclear Physics and Quantum Physics.
Heisenberg: Werner Heisenberg, quantum physicist
Tivoli: garden and park in Denmark, reference to Niels Bohr
ungefillte: unfilled
fargeyts: forget, forgotten
Challa: challa bread for shabbas
blintzes: Jewish crepes.
matza: a meal made of crumbled matza crackers usually rolled into balls for dumplings in matza ball soup.
quantum cat: Schrodinger's cat, a famous quantum paradox.

The rhyme scheme/ structure is:
a b c (vision word)  d e f g
a b c (vision word)  d e f g
a b c (vision word)  d e f g
--

Fast Day 198 March 18 2011 {Questions from a Kid in the ICU...}

 Questions From a Kid in the ICU on Valentine's Day

"Father, why did God give us eyes?"

strewn like a quilt across her bed
were crayon'd classmates' Valentines;
his arm asleep beneath her head,
while monitoring vital signs.
He said, "So we can color and can play!
Go to gramma's on Summer Lake,
where we can see the Milky Way!
And count candles on your birthday cake!

Even though we stay outside
and color books with paint carnations...
allergies and gramma's dogs..." he sighed,
her party dress like white impatiens.
Oedipus the same question asked,
dandled on Jocasta's knee;
young innocents put to the task
of dealing with eternity!

"Daddy, I don't know exactly why...
God gave us eyes so we can cry."

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draft 1:  http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2011/03/fast-day-198-march-18-2011-questions.html

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